The invention relates in general to munitions and in particular to hand-thrown grenades.
Some large gun-launched projectiles, such as 155 mm projectiles, may carry many submunitions or bomblets that may be expelled in flight. Each bomblet may be independently stablized and armed. One type of bomblet may include a point detonating fuze that detonates the bomblet on impact. Detonation of the bomblet may send anti-personnel fragments radially and may send a shaped-charge jet downward. A large number of gun-launched projectiles that contain bomblets may no longer be used. Thus, there may be millions of surplus bomblets.
If the surplus bomblets are destroyed, the large original capital investment in the bomblets will be lost. And, the process of de-militarizing the bomblets is another large cost. A need exists for a cost-effective method of converting surplus bomblets into useful products.